


Build yourself a citadel amid the foothills of regret

by ImberReader



Series: Only my lover, not I, can keep my soul [1]
Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Because they do not meet just yet but as the series progress they shall, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Implied/referenced threats of rape/non-con, Other, Technically pre-OT3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:47:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22900468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImberReader/pseuds/ImberReader
Summary: There is blood on her hands the day when she meets the wolf.There is blood on her hands the day she meets the lark.There is change, too, as destiny starts to take shape in her bloody hands.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: Only my lover, not I, can keep my soul [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1646023
Comments: 11
Kudos: 43





	Build yourself a citadel amid the foothills of regret

**Author's Note:**

  * For [indoissetep](https://archiveofourown.org/users/indoissetep/gifts).



> Inspired by [this lovely art of Geraskier](https://craftgamerzz.tumblr.com/post/190822600376/ya-alls-its-geraskierweek-day-1-soulmates) and my Bean's callout/enabling, here comes a messy Geraskefer Soulmate AU. (Why is this my staple now???)
> 
> If you are somehow here for Braime content, I shall return to it, I promise! I just need to casually get this out of my system on the side. That's why I'm attempting a chapter/piece by piece publishing. 
> 
> Title from [How to Rest](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol02kFQZxgg) by The Crane Wives. Which, by the way, will be title inspiration for everything in this series, I suspect.
> 
> Not beta-d. We embarrass ourselves publicly like men. You can find me on [tumblr](https://scoundrels-in-love.tumblr.com/).

The first time she sees the wolf she almost gets him killed.

Yennefer is running an errand for her mother on the outskirts of town, when two men stumble into her. They reek of ale, like her step father does after harvest festival and her mother bites her lip until it is bloody (better than to have it bleeding from his knuckles, when she says he has drunk and gambled half of their year’s earnings in this evening), and she winces from it as much as the impact. 

One of them grabs her arm, demands she apologizes - which she does -, but it’s not enough. The other laughs and wonders if her cunt is as twisted as her back and face and the man holding her leers, saying they should find out. Her heart is hammering so hard she thinks it sounds like rushing of a great beast.

And then there is a flash of white and red, warm splatter on her face and ache of finger imprints, but there is no one holding her anymore. It happens so fast, Yennefer feels like the scream building in her has turned into a silent wave that crashes over her and turns her thoughts into hundreds of smooth, little pebbles scattering everywhere. Mother told her of the sea and the beach once and Yennefer thinks there are few things that sound as horrifying and beautiful as that.

The white wolf, its muzzle dripping and dark, is much like the sea that way. When it turns to her a part of her is numb, but the rest - the rest feels dizzy and floating on power. In-between the two is a sharp cut of fear, fear _of_ this feeling, because she doesn't know how to contain it or how to keep it. But she is not afraid of _him_. 

Because she knows this wolf would never hurt her, that this is her Soulmate’s soulbeast.

She knows it with more certainty than she knows most things. Knows it like she knows her mother loved her, but that love is now worn and thin like a cloth that makes for shabby bandage, that it will always tear at her step father’s anger and need to protect her other children. Knows it like the weight of her hump and the way words always fall crooked from her lips. 

The wolf takes few steps toward her, ears dropping and head lowering as if it expects her to attack him, and that is when the noises rush back to her. She cannot be found here, the _wolf_ can’t be found here with two dead men. So she does the only thing she can do - she drags the bodies away into the woods. She has seen butchering of pigs, the ones she had fed and raised, the guts and blood of these do little to her, at least until much later when she is trying to wash her hands and clothes in the cold stream and the tears start coming. 

Her hands shake, but they find purchase in the white fur as the wolf approaches again, hesitant and then stiff in the hug she imposes on him, but then he lays down and wraps around her, nuzzles her more gently than she can remember anyone touching her. A wail after wail, minute after minute, gets smothered in the broad side of the beast and when she can finally release him, the sun filters through the trees at the angle of approaching sunset. 

“You must go,” she tells him. “When they are found, there will be a wolf hunt. Being my soulbeast will not protect you.” Because he is _hers_ and she means nothing, a maddened crowd would spear them both. The hunchback and the beast that kills, a pair that the world is better off without. 

The wolf licks her face and the touch is harsh and comforting. There is a solemn understanding in those bright yellow eyes, but he doesn’t leave. So Yennefer goes first. And later, when she gets a beating at home, it hurts a bearable amount because she remembers how it felt to be _safe_. 

As she predicted, there is a hunt that very night when the chewed up remains of the two unknown men are found. But the party returns empty handed and hungry, relief filling Yennefer to fingertips with sunlight, and within half a year, the whole matter is forgotten.

Except she remembers the wolf, in brief happy moments when the sky is high and yet she imagines how it would be to reach and touch it, when the night is long and she wonders if the howls in the distance could be his, tries to maintain the slipping memory when she is in pain and so alone, so powerless it feels like another hump. It’s him she thinks of when she is pushed into straw and she wants to be away, _away_ from here, these hands and these words, and the power she felt seeing him surges through her, takes her from there - but not where she wants to be. 

But it is not until the day that Tissaia de Vries comes for her that Yennefer sees the white wolf again. He leaps in front of her, hackles raised and growls a low, threatening sound, that sends her step father reeling back. Not an eyelash flutters in the sorceress’ cold expression. 

“Move, mutt. It would be a shame if I had to kill you here, if you want to be useful to her some other time.”

Her fingers dig into the wolf’s fur, she doesn’t know if to hold or push him away, but that decision is made for her - both of them, really, she realizes as the other woman flicks her wrist and the beast gets flung aside like a rag doll, tossed into the fence that shatters upon impact. 

The last she sees of her home is a blur of white trying to catch up with the cart, the warmth of safety and control that had carried her onward like dust beneath its wheels. 

**Author's Note:**

> There's so much logistics shit I am _not_ touching in this verse, just... Just squint and try to enjoy, please.


End file.
